The form of property which was always held to be in closest connexion with gentle blood was land. This has been so in a pre-eminent degree since our English Revolution at the end of the 17th century. From that time onwards the smaller landowners, yeomen and squires with small holdings, begin to disappear and the landed gentry become practically supreme. Political power in a large measure rested with them, and the result was that numbers of men who had made money in trade were eager to use it in the purchase of land, for this meant the purchase of social and political influence. It was no doubt this craze for the possession of land which led to the process of enclosing the common lands of the village, a process on which no true Englishman can look back in these days without shame and sorrow. It is no doubt arguable that from an economic point of view the productive power of the land was increased, that agriculture was more efficiently and scientifically managed by the comparatively few big men than it would have been by the many small men who were displaced. None the less the price was too high, for it meant a still further accentuation of class distinction. It meant the further enrichment of the big man, and the further impoverishment of the small man. And between the two there grew up a class of farmers, separate from the labourers, whose outlook on the whole did not make for those relations of neighbourliness and even kinship which had been among the fine characteristics of the ancient village. Nor is this the end of the story, for the distinction between the "haves" and the "have nots" was still further accentuated, and the two classes driven still further apart, by the far-reaching Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th century. The alienation between the farmer and the labourer was exactly paralleled by the alienation which gradually crept in between the manufacturer and the workers. The growth of the factory system was indeed so rapid that only the keenest foresight could have provided against these evils. The same may be said of the amazing development of the towns, particularly in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, which quickly gathered round the new hives of industry. Unfortunately that foresight was lacking. On the one hand the science of town-planning had hardly been born, on the other hand a lightning accumulation of large fortunes turned the heads of the commercial magnates, dehumanised industry, and broke up the fellowship which in older and simpler days had obtained between the employer and his men.